Who We Are And What We Used To Be
by vanillafire
Summary: Straight after Gluhen and before Side B, Ken reflects on what is keeping him alive, and considers the effect that his relationship with Omi has had on him. Working through his memories of their time together will lead him to a life-changing conclusion.
1. I Am Ken Hidaka

It breaks my heart to think of you these days. Not because the love we once had has died, but because of the part of you that died with it. Everything about you is colder now, colder because you had to be, to face everything that you've been hit with. Even your name is colder now: Mamoru Takatori. It's harsh and commanding when placed next to who you used to be – bright, soft, Omi Tsukiyono. I can understand the change, understand why we had to go our separate ways when Weiss was disbanded, and in a way I'm happy that we're no longer together, but I think the pain of seeing you reject the boy you used to be will always linger.

You are stronger than me, however. You changed yourself in order to become who you felt you had to be, changed in order to give yourself a life after everything that we lived through as Weiss – everything that _you_ lived through as Weiss: for you were Weiss before any of us, your own father – although you did not know he was such at the time – training you to become an assassin from childhood. No wonder you needed to leave scared, confused Omi Tsukiyono behind.

But I... I fell into the darkness that had always been a willing dance partner for all of us, were we only to stumble and accept that last dance. I can't pinpoint exactly the time when I began to enjoy the killing; I think the regrets slipped away gradually, fading over time as one dark beast's death turned into twenty, turned into two hundred, turned into more than I could ever wish to count. I remember saying to Yohji, after Weiss had disbanded, that it's not that I fell into darkness, but that I had always been there – but I know now that that was not true. I used to be just a normal guy, living the dream of being a professional footballer, and I was young and enthusiastic and happy. It's something I know I can find again, that feeling of bright life, of sunshine and the feel of the ball at my feet, the feel of the air rushing against my skin as I dive to make a save.

Save. Prison has saved me, of this I am sure. Starting that game, when that ball fell at my feet, as if it were an offer of redemption from fate, saved me. I had always had football, even if the J-League and professionalism had been forever stripped from me by Kase. I had always had football, and I will always _have_ football. In my early Weiss days, I would coach youth teams, teach them to be the best they could be. I can't go back to those days, perhaps, but I can go back to the feeling. Everyone has something that keeps them holding onto life: an ambition, family, a lover, friendship... mine was, is, and always will be, football.

At present, however, I am just Ken Hidaka, the man who only days ago had been lost in a pit of death, unsure of his reason for living, knowing only that he felt alive when he took life away from others. That Ken Hidaka was no longer compatible with Omi Tsukiyono, and this Ken Hidaka will never be compatible with Mamoru Takatori, either. All that will be left behind, just warm memories, reminders that, for a while, Ken Hidaka and Omi Tsukiyono were more than just murderers. The original Weiss... it was a time when we needed to reaffirm our humanity, and what better way to do that than love another with everything we had? We needed our love, needed each other, and even after we outgrew it, the small shreds of sanity that had been preserved by it would keep us afloat in the stormy seas of coming to terms with a life that suddenly had no purpose. There was no purpose for me after Weiss disbanded once the mission concerning the American base was over.

I am Ken Hidaka, and I once loved Omi Tsukiyono.


	2. What Kept Me In Weiss

The drab walls of my cell, the captivity for which I willingly volunteered, ease my thoughts along, as I had hoped they would. I had come here to find out who I am - _what _I am – and the first step towards becoming human again had been rediscovering football and how it made me feel alive. That is what is keeping me here on this earth, but I need something more than that, I need something that not only keeps me here but _wants_ me here. I used to have that, with Omi.

We were a lovely couple; everyone who knew about us said that, and it's true, we were. We looked good together, we complemented each other's strengths, we were best friends as well as lovers... we were a beautiful team.

I remember how we first became more than just good friends. It wasn't especially romantic or dramatic or anything else that rose-tinted vision tends to apply to these situations: it was just him and me, in the mission room, after we'd come back from a boring reconnaissance survey. Yohji had gone out the minute we'd come back, shouting something about how we shouldn't wait up for him, and then he was gone, the back door bouncing as he kicked it shut behind him in his enthusiasm. We didn't purposefully stay up to greet him at his return, but I have memories of hearing him stumble up the stairs and trip over a towel someone had left on the floor of the bathroom. They're hazy memories, of course, because I was kissing Omi in his room at the time, but we both had to smother giggles as we heard him arguing with Aya about being drunk and smashing Aya's favourite toiletries as he fell onto the side of the bath. Aya would always wake easily if there was noise outside his room, and I swear that he always watched out for Yohji coming home late, because they were always conversing in the small hours, either Aya reprimanding him for his behaviour or just talking normally, about normal things. You could tell that Aya was never really mad at him, though, because his eyebrows would quirk ever so slightly and he'd try to make his voice even deeper than usual in an attempt to sound stern. After he had told Yohji off, he would always help him back to his room if he was drunk, or he would linger at his door, watching him for a little while before turning away to return to his own room. They were so sweet, those two. But it is Omi that I'm trying to think about, Omi who is important.

We were in the mission room, just sitting in companionable silence as we always did after Weiss business; it helped to reset our normality. There was no way we'd ever really be normal, not after everything we'd done, but we could pretend. I think that's why Kritiker made us work at the Koneko: it was a little anchor of reality in lives that otherwise were something straight out of a warped action film.

"Ken," Omi had said, from the chair that was at right angles from where I was sprawled out on the sofa. We'd been quiet for a while now, almost as if we'd been sleeping with our eyes open; it was that kind of relaxing atmosphere.

"Mm?" I replied lazily, comfortable on the mass of cushions that I had fashioned into one big heap of unadulterated luxury under my head.

"What keeps you in Weiss?" he asked, and I think he sat up as he said it, eager to hear the response.

If there was ever a question for contemplating while reclining on a sumptuous leather sofa, that was it. I lay there in silence for a little while, mulling it over in my recumbent state, and he didn't rush me, as he knew what a loaded question it was. In retrospect, I think he had planned to steer the conversation the way he was to do, but at the time I didn't notice. That was Omi all over, trying to be subtle, getting the measure of other people's emotions before he would jump in with something surprising. He was very good at picking up on the little signals that people give off in conversation, and still is, although I don't think he puts his talent to use in his personal life anymore – I am not even sure he has one. But back then, his sweetness drew out a confession from me which I hadn't even been truly aware was there.

"I stay in Weiss because... because I can't imagine anything else anymore," I replied, still lazing horizontally on that sofa. It felt a bit like a sleepover but without the borrowed beer and the tantalisingly scrambled porn on cable channels that hadn't been activated. "I can't imagine wearing a button-down shirt and riding the subway every day, it would be too weird. Too weird after playing top level football and then killing people for a living. I think I'm legally dead, too, which would worry my employers!" I laughed at this, partly because I thought it was funny, and partly because it really wasn't.

"I'm sure Kritiker could sort you out with the necessary documents if you wanted out," Omi said, after a small pause. "If the only reason you can't stop is because you feel you aren't normal anymore."

And that was the thing – I said that that was why I couldn't leave Weiss, and it had been what I said to myself whenever I wondered whether I should; but put like Omi did, it sounded like I was kidding myself, feeding myself reasons that would fall apart if you blew on them to cool them down.

"I'm also probably afraid to leave, too," I said, trying to make it sound insignificant.

"Afraid?" Omi's tone was questioning and concerned. It was at this point that he came and sat next to me on the sofa, picking up my legs and draping them over the top so that he had room to sit comfortably. I loved how he did that so familiarly, and it made me more inclined to talk properly about the subject at hand, although I was also aware that Omi being this close to me meant that there was no way he'd let me _not_ talk about it!

"Well, not really afraid, just... it would be so odd to leave you guys and do something else, you know? I'd wonder what you were doing, what you were up to, but I'd never be able to talk about it with you, because it wouldn't be my life anymore. I guess that that's what I'm afraid of: leaving behind the part of me that no one else could know about. If I started a new life, I'd have to completely bury my old one, and I don't know if I could do that." I really was relaxed, if I was making little speeches like that one. Omi was always a captive audience, letting you completely speak your mind without ever seeming bored with you. That was the essence of Omi Tsukiyono: he cared about other people, so deeply, too deeply. It never really disappeared from his character, either, even when he survived the transition to Mamoru. He just hid it better.

"Ah." He nodded earnestly and then angled himself into the corner of the sofa, so that he was facing me and could watch me speak. Of course, he just wanted to plain old watch me, too. That makes me smile.

"I know what you mean, Ken-kun," he went on, reaching over to me and yanking a cushion out from under my head, flashing me a half-grin, half-smirk as I whined in protest at falling a little lower. "I don't even know anything outside Weiss, and I wouldn't have anything if I left. I'd have to completely build everything back up again, and I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet." The Omi of back then didn't know that he would end up in charge of Weiss, didn't know that he would be the next generation of Kritiker leaders, orchestrating every last movement of his teams. I'm glad he didn't.

"I think," I said slowly, rolling the idea over my tongue as it rippled through my mind, "that if we both wanted to get out, we could do something together, help each other out. If we did that, it might not be so bad."

I could _feel_ him smile then, and so I tilted my head downwards to look at him; watching Omi smile was far more beautiful a sight than gazing unseeing at the ceiling, idly counting the number of smoke stains that Yohji had left there from smoking his cigarettes in here when no one was looking.

"That would be nice, one day," he said, still smiling; but it was a sad little smile, one which betrayed his inner thoughts, one which said that he didn't believe it would ever happen. All that, in one smile. And the smile had been right. We didn't get out, and it didn't happen. But that night it was fun to pretend, fun to pretend that we had some sort of future. A quiet voice in my head added 'together' to the end of that: some sort of future _together_. And it was then that I began to realise that maybe Omi was hinting at something. The thought made my stomach tighten in a sensation approaching excitement but not quite there.

"You know what else keeps me in Weiss?" I offered, after a strategic pause.

"What else?" Omi said, the smile returning, his lips quirking ever so slightly this time. We were easing into some sort of game, and he was having fun directing the play the way he wanted. I was happy backing him up, keeping the ball out of the net. Something had changed in the atmosphere, and I think we both knew what we were leading up to, but we were holding it back as long as possible. It made the game more exciting...

"Weiss itself." I was mirroring Omi's smile now, but trying to hide it. "I love you guys, and I don't want to leave you all behind, not until I know every single last thing about you. With Yohji, that's going to be too much information, and with Aya, I don't think I'll ever finish..." My smile had morphed into a grin now, a really stupid one that I couldn't get rid of. I think Omi thought it was cute, though, which nullified the stupidity enough to be tolerable.

"And what about me?" He was flirting with me now, peering at me with his big blue eyes that sparkled with mischief and a hint of naughtiness on the backburner.

"I _especially_ want to know - every - last – thing - about _you_," I half-purred, drawling in silk tones that I didn't know I could produce until that moment. He was doing things to me, Omi was, and he knew it. His controlled smug expression only encouraged me, though, and I think he knew that too. He looked innocent, but psh, he so wasn't, and this was something that I would find out by the end of the night.

He raised one cute little eyebrow, a trick he knew I couldn't do, and parroted "Every last thing?" back at me. I nodded, pretending to be very serious about it, and confirmed "Every last thing."

"All five senses?" he went on, not quite hiding the playful waywardness that lit up his features.

"All five senses." I had a feeling I knew what he was leading up to, and hoped desperately that he'd say it...

"That means, then, that..." He pretended to pause here, a small thinking pout appearing on his lips, intended entirely to tease. "That means that since you've seen me, heard me, hugged me, know what kind of scented shampoo I use... it means you're going to have to taste me..."

And then the mood changed entirely.

"Can I?" I asked quietly, seriously. If this was only a game, then I wanted to know before I did something I'd probably regret.

"Please..." he whispered, looking up at me with those big blue eyes again, although this time they were completely earnest, lacking the mischief that had been there only seconds ago. My eyes met his slowly and the moment spanned out like a magic spell, holding us apart by a thread that one of us would have to break in order to move closer. It was Omi who broke it, leaning forwards and gently pressing his lips to mine in one beautiful instant, warming me through with melted honey. It was so soft, our first kiss, simple and chaste, but seeming to last an eternity, neither of us wanting to break the bewitching contact. When we eventually pulled away, we were both blushing and warm, and we scooched closer to each other on the sofa. I could feel him breathing deeply against me as he smiled at me, and then the spark of mischief returned to his eyes and he said, "You can't taste with just your lips, Ken-kun!" in a manner that would have sounded positively indecent had it been anyone else. The 'kun' only made it worse, the juxtaposition of polite familiarity with what he was asking me for. It stirred something in me, and it was I who took charge of this kiss, now, starting off slow and then hesitantly running my tongue over his lips. He moaned softly and parted them, letting me into the warm confines of his mouth, and then before we knew it we had moved up to his bedroom, after deciding that having Yohji or Aya find us rolling around on the sofa downstairs was not desirable for any of the parties involved; Yohji, especially, we joked, would have just ended up all hot and bothered, and we needed to save him from that!

That was all we did that night, kissing each other heatedly, passionately, but it was exactly what we wanted, and it was beautiful. To be kissing Omi, the person I loved most in the whole world, and for him to be kissing me back! The world was suddenly an exciting and wonderful place, and when we fell asleep curled up next to each other in his bed, snuggled under the duvet, I felt more peaceful than any other time in my life.

We were so beautiful, him and I, on that night.


	3. What Makes Us Human

In the beginnings, I wondered whether assassins were allowed to love. During the precious few days I was with Yuriko, I had thought that killers weren't allowed to have happiness, that I couldn't taint her with the essence of what I really was; and Yohji had spelt it out for me even clearer, when I thought that perhaps I really would go with her to Australia: 

"How many have you killed? How many people have you killed? And you can hold her in those arms?" 

At the time it had hurt, I had thought that he was just trying to keep me in Weiss to keep the team dynamic going. I had said to him "A player like you wouldn't understand", but now I realise that a player like him _would_ understand, and understand better than the rest of us, even. Yohji loved women, wanted to make them happy and give them all of himself, but how could he, if he was a murderer? We were no longer alive as far as legal records were concerned – imagine putting down 'assassin' as my occupation on my tax return! -  and we were no longer alive as far as we ourselves were concerned, either. How could Yohji have a steady relationship with a woman if he had to hide things from her? How could he ride the pain of knowing that he could die any night and leave her behind? How could he live with the knowledge that someone hostile to Weiss might see her with him and target her? It was too much for one person to bear, and so he didn't, instead settling into the "player" lifestyle that we all jabbed at him for. He never really told me much about his time as a PI, but I think that pining for his dead lover, Asuka, had something to do with it all too. 

And now Yohji is _married_, and I suppose that in a way he has got what he wanted – he's settled down with a beautiful woman and remembers nothing of his previous life. He can give all of himself and has nothing to hide. But... how much is there left to give, if part of Yohji Kudou has been forgotten, remaining only in the hearts of three murderers? It pains me to think that, right at the end, when we were battling with Epitaph, he realised how wrong he had been to want to erase everything, to falsely nullify the sorrow he carried with him, but that... but that it happened anyway. 

Weiss are the only people who will know the true story of Yohji Kudou. Perhaps it's better like this, for the three of us to continue to carry the sins of others, for us to protect them; or maybe it's just more tragedy that life has thrown at us, laughing while it piles it on. Either way, I suppose it doesn't matter: it doesn't matter to a man who is sitting in a prison cell by his own volition because he can't cope with enjoying killing others any longer. What does sentimentality matter to a mass-murderer? I suppose that that's why I'm here, actually: I'm trying to discover why sentimentality matters. And, once more, that leads me back to Omi. 

Omi was the one who showed me that assassins _are_ allowed to love. We couldn't tarnish each other any further than we already were; we had nothing to hide; we understood the risks involved. And so, we loved each other; we discovered our own piece of happiness in a world that by its very nature was dark and tainted and corrupt. It wasn't a normal kind of happiness, I won't kid myself with that, but it was as close as we could ever hope to get, and it was ours. 

When Ouka died in his arms, Omi found out the hard way what it was to love someone who wasn't involved in this world of shadows. For a while after that, neither of us were quite the same as we had been: Omi had his sorrow of blaming himself for unwittingly involving her in his hidden life, and I had my thoughts of Yuriko and Kase, unhappiness and betrayal whirling around in my head like a blizzard, harsh and biting and bitter. On the night Omi and I shared our first kiss, the snow began to melt, though, and things were only to warm up as time went on. Omi Tsukiyono was the sunshine on my barren soul, the bright summer to my winter, and I suspect that I was all those things to him, too. I hope I was. Hope I _am_, maybe, if he still allows himself to think about what we used to be, what we used to have. 

However, being an assassin in love carried its own unique set of risks that were quite apart from the normal pitfalls of such an intense emotion. A mission with so many hearts at stake showed us all that. 

It all began with Yohji (as so many good stories tend to) and the woman he thought was his dead lover, Asuka. If only she hadn't really been Neu of Schreient, pretending so that she could lure us all into a trap. I don't blame Yohji for trying to cling to a part of his past that he loved with everything he had – I did just the same when I discovered that Kase was still alive, and in doing so nearly got myself killed, and jeopardised the mission too. I suppose it reminds us that we're human, these foolish things we do. 

We were all off-guard when we arrived at the laboratory – apart from Aya, who I think suspected something. I was just happy that Yohji had been working for Weiss all along, and that he wasn't going to leave; thoughts of finding the location so easily never crossed my mind. It was a shock, therefore, when Schrient appeared and everything began to go wrong. When I heard Omi scream, when I saw him fall through the floor, that was it for me: it was all I cared about, getting to him and keeping him safe. Before I even registered that the grill was going to fall, sealing us in, I dived to save him, my goal-keeper's reflexes still very much alive. I managed to snatch him out of the way of the hurtling metal screen in time, but now we were both trapped, having to rely on the unseen battle being fought by Yohji and Aya above us; and Yohji was fighting two battles: one with his wire, and one with his mind. 

"Ken-kun... I feel strange..." Omi fell into my arms and _oh God_, at those words, something in me twisted and pulled and it was all I could do to try to hide my hysteria when I called out for Aya and Yohji. Omi was hurt – Omi was _hurt _– and Schoen had just told us that there were dangerous experimental substances in this laboratory! Omi was already feverish and flushed, my hands were scraped so I couldn't allow myself to touch him properly in case I made him worse by transmitting toxins from my own wounds, and all I wanted to do was cradle him in my arms and neutralise everything with my embrace; somehow make everything better just by willing it to be so. 

"Omi... I love you," I whispered, not knowing whether he was too far gone to hear me or not. "Omi, I'm going to get you out of here and take care of you until you're better. I love you so much, Omi..." I felt it was important to keep saying his name, as if repeating it over and over would keep him in the world of consciousness, although... it was more for my own sake, I think; his name was soft on my lips, and talking to him was calming the irregular thundering of my heart, even if he couldn't hear me. But I think he could, because his face shifted, ever so slightly, against my shoulder, and I thought I could feel his lips moving, forming words that he was unable to say out loud. I knew what he was trying to tell me, though: even if he hadn't been so generous with the words since our first night together, I would have known anyway, just from the way he'd glance at me at breakfast, when he thought no one was looking, or just from the way that he would always leave me hastily-scribbled notes to say good morning before he left for school, if it was my lie-in day, or just from... oh, there were so many things that Omi did that let me know that he loved me, and going through each and every one in my mind acted as an anaesthetic, helping to numb the burning pain of my hands and the equally burning pain in my heart at the thought of Omi suffering. 

There were sounds of shouting, and whips being cracked, above us, and I remember briefly wondering what was going on, before going back to trying to nurse Omi using the strength of my feelings alone. It wasn't good enough, but I needed to feel as if I was doing _something_, anything – and then I heard Yohji _scream_, scream with an anguish that, although telling me he wasn't in danger, ripped through me like a hurricane, lasting only seconds but leaving everything broken and warped in its wake. It was a scream that pressed a single flaring thought into my mind: would I scream like that if Omi died? What would I _do_, if Omi died? What if he died and I had to carry on with the mission without properly tending to him? What if...? And to my shame, I could feel the beginnings of something I hadn't felt since I had had to kill Kase: the beginnings of tears of my own anguish and frustration welling up behind my eyes, although I didn't let them fall. Yohji was already crying, I knew, and I wanted to tell him that I shared the same fate of having to kill someone you loved, but there was nothing he would have gained from that at that time; it wasn't enough to let someone know that you empathised, because it would do nothing to lessen the pain. 

It was Aya who got us out of the pit, understanding, when he met my eyes, that I was going to lose control and break down if I tried to say anything. He scooped Omi up, even more gently than he would normally have done, and then returned to give me a helping hand, as my own were in no condition to be useful. I was so grateful that he didn't say a word. Aya was a man who was conservative with words anyway - not because he was unfriendly or anything like that, but just because saying more than necessary seemed a waste, to him; until he rescued Aya-chan, he was always on his own private mission, even when he was at home at the Koneko, and his drive to give his sister back the life that was taken from her never allowed him much time to be unprofessional, on the outside. But he cared, I know he did. It showed in all the little things he did for us, all the things he did that kept us strong just because _he_ seemed strong, even if he was secretly crying inside. It's what he did this night, too: he was the one who was in control, the one who looked after Omi and me, the one who obviously desperately wanted to comfort Yohji as we all sat on that hill outside the lab and fell apart in our own discrete ways. I could see the pain in his eyes as he watched Yohji tremble and weep, see the pain as Yohji ran off to his car and drove off as the sun was rising, leaving him with his wishes of wanting to make things better for him, even though he would never tell Yohji that directly. 

Aya sat down heavily, resting his head on his drawn-up knees for a while as we waited for Kritiker to arrive with a vehicle to take Omi and me to have our wounds treated. I curled up on my side, not quite wanting to sleep, but close to it. I was so tired, and still worried, and little trembles were running through me, dosing my body with even more adrenaline that I did not need right now. 

And then Aya lifted his head off his knees and spoke. 

"You're in love with Omi, aren't you?" he said, quietly, thoughtfully. Another injection of adrenaline coursed through me as I scrambled for what the right answer to his question might be. What would Aya think, if I replied in the affirmative? Would he think we were jeopardising the team dynamic? Would he believe me if I said no? 

After a split-second's decision, I said, very softly, "Yes, I am." It did not matter if he thought we were being unprofessional; honesty with a man who was always looking out for me did. 

He was quiet for a while, in the way only Aya could be: he sort of filled in the silences with the promise that whatever he eventually did say was going to be the most worthwhile thing you would ever hear, and he did not disappoint. 

"Be happy together," he said in little more than a whisper. I was nearly overwhelmed by what those three little words made me realise all in one instant, all tangled together and yet somehow distinctly separate, too: we had Aya's blessing; Aya was in love with Yohji but believed it was hopeless; Aya was lonelier than he let on; and - the most important for me - that we were allowed to love. Even if it resulted in hearts filled with fear, we were allowed to love. 

We were allowed to love, because that's what made us human. 


	4. When the World Was Mine

Hi everyone! It's about time I wrote an author's note, as I've just realised I forgot to do it for the other three chapters! I hope you're enjoying the story so far - there is still a long way to go, and much more of Ken and Omi before we reach Ken as he is in the present day! I really enjoyed writing this chapter: I think it's my favourite so far, just for how sweet they are together as a couple. Is there anything sweeter than Ken and Omi together? I think not. :D 

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review - I really appreciate the detailed feedback you've been giving me! Chrysoprase, Hinto Hoshiko, Rock and Yaoi, Kasra, Charlie, Koneko Bombay, and Crazy: you rule. And to Cat, my fantastic proofreader, who's never too busy to read over whatever I place in front of her, and makes the most useful and encouraging comments: thank you. I'd not be able to do this even half as well without you. :) 

* * *

I remember now, Aya's words, and their significance. Rediscovering how football makes me feel alive was the first step to becoming human again, and now I have taken another, remembering how being in love used to make me feel. Was it what kept Omi and me sane until we went our separate ways? I only lost it after I lost _him_, after all... but I think, probably, that my descent into madness would have happened anyway. I feel awkward saying that, as it is still hard to accept that there is anything wrong with me at all. This emptiness in my chest, however – an emptiness that is beginning to be filled up, now, but an emptiness nonetheless – and this feeling of _wrongness_, this feeling that enjoying taking people's lives away should not be a part of me, tell me that there is indeed something very wrong with me. The only way I can think to erase this is to sit here and remember: remember a Ken Hidaka who was alive. And I can't remember a time when I felt more alive than when Omi and I first... well, when we first... y'know... 

We'd been together for exactly two months and nine days: I know this because I counted, however soppy that might make me seem. I'm smiling now, just thinking about it! Every last detail is important to me; the more I remember, the more real it remains, and I have a feeling that the more real things are for me the better in a time like this. If I let myself get lost in my own world again, I will undo everything I have worked through today, and I... I want it to stop. I don't want to enjoy causing pain, taking lives, revelling in blood, anymore. If I concentrate on how giving _pleasure_ made me feel, then... well, maybe there is hope. 

I had learned very quickly that Omi was nowhere near as innocent as he outwardly appeared – our first kiss had shown me that! – so it was no surprise to me that he set the pace and the mood of the evening. We had already been intimately acquainted with each other's bodies for a while, the most memorable time being that first session in the shower we had together... but the question of going that extra step had not really been voiced by either of us yet. We'd just been content with touching and kissing late into the night, discovering exactly what it was that made the other gasp with passion undisguised. 

The first few days in which we had started to go to bed with each other, rather than just he or me creeping back to our own bed in the middle of the night, was when Yohji found out about us. We'd been meaning to sit down and tell him, especially because Aya had already guessed and it wasn't fair otherwise, but he beat us to it. I have always been very... vocal, in bed – I suppose I like to wear my emotions on my sleeve, most of the time – and despite our best efforts to keep quiet when we knew our team mates were home, Omi doing something _very_ interesting caused me to moan loudly in a manner that could _never_ be confused with night terrors or stubbing a toe in the dark. Yohji's room was next door to mine, and when we heard the door open and then the bathroom light flicker on, we looked at each other, in the dim light, and started to giggle. We weren't one hundred percent sure he had heard us – heard _me_! – but the situation just seemed so funny, as if we were naughty teenagers hiding from our parents, that we cuddled under the blankets for what felt like an age, trying very hard to mask our not-quite awake laughter but failing miserably in a way that only two very naked and very amused people can do. 

The next afternoon, when I was sitting in the kitchen on my lunch break, eating a sandwich, Yohji strolled in, on his way to start his shift. He waved at me cheerfully, and all seemed normal, until he clapped me playfully on the back and said, right next to my ear, "Is that all you've been eating, Ken?" 

I choked on my sandwich and he laughed, a deep, rich chuckle which went from nought to saucy in under two seconds. I was still choking when he ceremoniously set a small bottle of lubricant on the table, next to my unfinished sandwich, and said, still right in my ear, "Have fun, kittens..." He winked, gave me a grin that was probably illegal in some of the world's smaller countries, and then sauntered off, whistling. It was the most surreal experience I think I've ever had, although the thing foremost in my mind at the time was to rescue myself from suffocation: there was no _way_ I was going to die with a bottle of _lube_ next to my sandwich! 

Rather than being mortified, as I had quietly worried he would be, Omi found it riotously funny, and now always had to cough back laughter every time I ate a sandwich when he was in the room. It was an odd food to associate with the unspoken significance that that little bottle held, but then it became a kind of game, to see who could say to Aya or Yohji, "Would you like a sandwich?" with a straight face. The innuendo of the question was not lost on anyone, and just watching Aya try to pretend that it was otherwise was priceless in itself. We gave up on that game after a few days, though – Yohji actually knocking on the door late at night asking in a mock sultry tone if we were hungry was enough of a sign that it was time we should stop – and the bottle was stowed away in one of Omi's bedside drawers, to deal with and discuss later. 

We were in Omi's room on the night we first made love. It had been a wonderful Saturday: we'd convinced Aya and Yohji to come bowling with us - Omi had of course won, because his aim is exceptional – and then Omi and I had gone to the park in the afternoon, strolling under the trees in the sunshine eating ice cream. We'd even dared to hold hands for a little while, and had stolen a few kisses under the cherry blossoms when the sun started going down. We sat there for hours, watching the sky change from orange to red to a dusky violet, and when the stars came out, we tried naming some of the constellations, until Omi realised that I was making them up – I still maintain that Orion _does_ have a katana – and punched me lightly on the arm, saying "You should have paid more attention in astrology!" 

"That was back in third grade!" I kicked his shoe softly and laughed, pulling him close to me and then shifting my weight backwards, so that we both ended up on our backs, looking up at the stars. 

"Know what I _do_ pay attention to?" I murmured in his ear, a small chuckle accidentally punctuating the end of the sentence. 

"The soccer results?" Omi was being facetious on purpose, to tease me right back. 

"Mmm..." I acquiesced lazily. "But guess again..." 

"This?" 

I wondered what he meant, until his lips brushed against mine, velvety soft and there for mere seconds before he returned to his original position, lying down on the grass, his arms behind his head. 

"You'll have to take me home if you want some more..." 

Omi did this every time – I would start teasing _him_, and then he would turn it around and leave me desperate before I could register what was happening. It was exciting, and I let him know this by running my tongue achingly slowly over his earlobe before purring "Okay..." next to his ear, feeling him shiver as I did so. 

Home couldn't be reached fast enough, and as soon as we tumbled through Omi's bedroom door, we were kissing heatedly, pent-up desire manifesting itself in kisses that were deeper and deeper, and yet would never be enough to satiate. It was all we could do to remember to lock the door on the way to the bed, where he settled on top of me, hands buried in my hair as our mouths danced, tongues playing over each other as we struggled to show each other how we felt. I moaned, deep in my throat, when Omi moved his hands from my hair, sliding them under my shirt, stroking my nipples slowly, maddeningly so, and I was forced to intensify the kiss, intensify it so that he could feel my radiating need... but still he teased, very obviously enjoying the reaction he was drawing from me. 

"It's getting hot in here, isn't it?" Omi said, withdrawing from the kiss and stretching his arms above his head, deliberately showing off his lithe body in a way that always made me even hotter. He was pretending not to care that he too was desperate to return to my arms and my kiss. 

"It's only hot because you're being an unbearable tease," I managed to pant, trying to chide him but only weakening my position by making it obvious that I was completely at his mercy. All he had to do was _look_ at me, or brush me with his fingertips, caress me with his tongue, and I was simply putty in his hands, anxious to do whatever he desired. 

"Ken-kun! I'd never tease you!" he protested, all the while inching his shirt off as slowly as he could, revealing inch after inch of enchantingly creamy skin, skin that I longed to taste and touch and possess... 

I pulled my own shirt off quickly, knowing from experience that any attempt to emulate him would be closer to funny than it would be to erotic. I just wasn't as sensual as Omi; my charm was more athletic, he told me – flowing movements and endless energy, combined with a flexibility that no natural being should be able to possess. I think he was joking about that last bit, but to an extent it's true, and I enjoy being able to show it off... just like he was doing with that damn shirt! 

"'Ken-kun! I'd never tease you!'" I muttered back at him, taking over and easing it over his head, then pulling him back on top of me, our skin flush and our eyes dancing as we drank in the heady sensation of just being close. I thought I could never get enough of feeling Omi's warm body next to mine, of feeling completely loved and secure, as if the whole world were mine... 

"God, I love you so much..." I breathed, breaking our kiss and just watching him, enjoying him. He smiled, then, the most beautiful, radiant smile I have ever, ever seen, and he moved closer to me, as if leaning in for a kiss, but he stopped, just inches from my face, so we could see every haze and sparkle of feeling in each other's eyes, and he said, he said to me... 

"Ken, I love you too... and..." He paused, wetting his lips. "And... love me tonight?" His voice was so soft and hesitant, and it pulled at my heart, making it thunder even harder, racing so fast that I felt it was never going to stop, and nor did I want it to. 

"Omi..." was all I could say, was all my mind could manage, overwhelmed as it was by his request. I wrapped my arms around him suddenly, pulling him down on top of me again and embracing him as tightly as I could, hoping to show him that I could think of nothing I would like to share with him more. He snuggled back against me and I could _feel_ the smile radiating from him, even though his face was obscured from view, and this told me better than any words that he knew how I felt. 

And then somehow we were kissing again, many, many kisses, short and staccato and electric, building up into a rhythm that matched our beating hearts, building up the desire between us that was overflowing. He pulled away just an inch, making me lean upwards off the bed to reach his lips, and we liked this so much that we kept doing it – soft, fluttering butterfly kisses, rising and falling off the bed as he made me work for them, each brief moment of contact adding to the crescendo of emotions swirling through my body like molten honey, sweet and thick and warm; oh, so warm... 

I was so lost that I nearly didn't register his hands at my waist, fingertips running over my skin gently, just above the top of my jeans, a wordless message. The thought made me shiver slightly as I rested my head back on the pillows after my last kiss, and I shivered once more as he unfastened the button, looking at me with eyes veiled by thick lashes, a sultry smile on his face. He made a show of it, as he had with his shirt earlier, and by the time the article had been dropped casually over the side of the bed, I was nearly dizzy with anticipation. Wanting to do the same for him, I however found that I was too far gone, and relieved him of his own with the same easy efficiency I had managed for my shirt earlier. He didn't seem to mind, though – quite the opposite, as he was now purring by my ear, whispering things to me that made my blood heat and sent euphoria rushing through my veins. 

Charged with desire, I clung onto him and rolled, so that it was now I who was on top. I couldn't keep my hands off him, caressing every inch as if I had never touched him before, as if I were rediscovering everything all over again. He moaned, when I moved lower, moaned when I began to stroke him, when I moved my mouth to present him with intimate kisses that conveyed only a fraction of what I felt for him. 

"Ken..." Omi whimpered, shuddering softly under me. "Stop, or I'm... we won't..." 

Understanding, even in my impassioned state, I moved back up to place a single kiss on his lips before whispering, "Take me, Omi... I'm yours tonight." 

He looked up at me, a little dazed, as if he had not been expecting to be the one to make love to _me_, but then he smiled again, eyes dancing, pupils larger than normal in the low light, and it was at that moment that I knew that Omi Tsukiyono was the most precious thing I had ever had in my life. Nothing was as beautiful as he was; nothing was as perfect, as wondrous, as heavenly... 

And it was then that I knew that the world really _was_ mine, because, at that time, my whole world was... Omi. 


End file.
